This message has been cross posted to the following Discussion Forums: Project Delivery and Practice Management Member Conversations .
-------------------------------------------
Perhaps you are right Mr. Steinke, technician may not be the right term. I am not sure that professional is any better though. Technicians do much more than fix copiers, but we are talking about perception here and I will grant you that this is a perception associated with the term.
I received a direct response via email to one of my earlier posts in which the respondant suggested that he was not discussing "design," he was discussing building performance and function. It dawned on me that the problems our profession is facing are much deeper that I had previously thought. I think I will write a post in the design forum with a title such as "It's All Design." Somehow the idea that design is only the "art," and everything else is "technical" has become engrained in our collective definition of architectural practice. This is really troublesome for me. How can one design the skin without designing the interior spaces and all that physically makes up the building? It is beyond me even to conceive of this.
The problem of the perception of architect's as providing what is essentially a service that is a "luxury" and not a centrally critical service to society is directly related to this perception of the separation of image from utility. They are one and the same and should be presented and promoted as such in everything that architects and the AIA do and print. If we can't agree on that, we are simply doomed.
Project management should be a core skill as well, to at least some degree. Implementation is no less a critical component of service than is any portion of the detailing, specification writing, or engineering of a building.
I too am an artist, but sometimes it is necessary to combat incorrect perceptions with extreme and sudden overcompensations in order to get attention and draw the pendulum back toward center. I am not suggesting that architects stop being artists, just that we shift the public perception away from that extreme view, and that we also understand the art is often our own self-indulgence, and that it is often not understood, appreciated or wanted by our clients or the public. We should also understand when they resent us because they are forced to pay for and entertain our self-indulgence.
------------------------------------------
Alan Burcope AIA, MBA, LEED AP
VP Project Development
HBE Corporation
Saint Louis MO
-------------------------------------------